Jazzing It Up Project

This has been a busy week with the conclusion of one project, extensive rehearsals for another and the start of a third (more about those later). The project that concluded this week was organised and set up by Jane Ward from Hagley Catholic school. It involved a range of artists from various disciplines working with feeder primary schools and another local secondary school to produce interpretations of JAZZ. The project began with a Jazz Concert performed in each of the schools by The Aaron Diaz Quartet.

Rehearsals at Our Lady and St Kenelm School

The school I worked with, Our Lady and St Kenelm in Halesowen , began the project by letting me record their immediate responses to the concert. This was later used in conjunction with the Jazz recording to produce a sound track to their performance.

During my weeks residency the young people devised a story, created characters, made masks, recorded audio and put it all together into one structure. The ideas were very much their own interpretations. The process also involved them in negotiating within their groups and really taking ownership of the work.

The results of the project as a whole  were showcased at Hagley School last Thursday. It was a busy, but fantastic day well organised and very engaging. It was good to see what the other schools had been up to. The standard was very high and it was obvious that all  the young people had been through a very enjoyable creative process.